A youth sports blog written by Bob Cook. He's contributed to NBCSports.com, or MSNBC.com, if you prefer. He’s delivered sports commentaries for All Things Considered. For three years he wrote the weekly “Kick Out the Sports!” column for Flak Magazine.
Most importantly for this blog, Bob is a father of four who is in the throes of being a sports parent, a youth coach and a youth sports economy stimulator in an inner-ring suburb of Chicago. He reserves the right to change names to protect the innocent and the extremely, extremely guilty.
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Here is a particularly bizarre example: apparently a white player stepped away in the middle of his high school baseball game to join his family in attacking the black man dating his stepsister. Then he came back to finish the game.

As a result, at least 30 black students in the Spiro, Okla., schools were kept home by their families May 14 in protest of the incident, and because although the player was suspended, he was allowed back in the school, and back on the Spiro High team for the state baseball tournament.

I’m going to note coverage by Sheila Stogsdill in both the Daily Oklahoman (of Oklahoma City) and the Tulsa World, which are owned separately but share some content. The coverage is odd in that some of the details in each story are different. For example, the Daily Oklahoman story notes the baseball player was white but doesn’t give his class, while the Tulsa World story notes he’s a senior but doesn’t give his race. Neither story identified the player by name. In any case, here is a sample of Stogsdill’s reporting on the incident and its aftermath:

More than 30 black Spiro students were pulled out of class Wednesday by their parents in an apparent protest over a fight between a white Spiro baseball player and a black man who dated the player’s stepsister, one of the town’s residents said. …

[A grandparent who pulled children out of school said] the protest stems from an April 29 fight between a white baseball player and 20-year-old Spiro resident Devon Perry, who is black. Steele said Perry was attacked by the baseball player and the player’s family at a high school baseball game. The baseball player went back to the game after the fight was over, [the grandparent] said. …

Perry said he has been dating the stepsister of the baseball player for the past four years, and the couple live together.

He said he was arrested on an outstanding speeding warrant after an argument with his girlfriend, and her family attacked him because they believed his arrest was the result of the argument.

“It’s a complicated mess,” Spiro Police Chief Darrell Barham said. “The fight is still under investigation with pending charges on everyone involved in the fight.”

There is still a lot left to come out regarding this fight (video of which, amazingly, has not been uploaded to any site from anyone’s cellphone), because at the time it happened, according to a May 1 report from New 5 in nearby Fort Smith, Ark., only one person was arrested:
Devon Perry.

Officers arriving at the ballgame reported seeing 10 or more people gathered around two males, including Perry, who was being detained by someone in the crowd. An officer took Perry by the hand and handcuffed him, according to the affidavit.

Witnesses said a man identified as Perry was “going crazy” at the game, punching and kicking women and even punching a 15-year-old boy in the nose, the affidavit states.

…

Perry’s mother told 5NEWS on Thursday (May 1) that her son was jumped by several people, and when authorities arrived, they only arrested him. …

Perry’s assailants used a racial slur while attacking him, [Perry's mother] said. She said her son was dating a white woman, adding that the woman’s family didn’t approve of the relationship. Some of those who attacked him were the girlfriend’s family members, she said.

The News5 report made no mention of a player leaving the game to join in the fight.

There is a lot of weirdness and internal family drama being laid bare here, and the truest quote I see is the only in which the police chief calls it a “complicated mess.”

However, you would think a baseball coach, or school, might take stronger action against a player charging into the stands to fight, for whatever reason — even allowing him to play at all seems questionable, much less if he was allowed to get back into the game at which the fight took place. So I can see why black families in Spiro, Okla., are suspicious, and why racial tension marches on.

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